Dash (DASH)

Dash was started on January 18th 2014 by Evan Duffield because Bitcoin had slow transaction times and it lacked privacy-preserving mechanisms. Evan Duffield forked Litecoin (later changed to Bitcoin’s codebase), changed the protocol’s hashing algorithm to X11 to make it ASIC-resistant, and introduced master nodes in the original whitepaper. Originally, Evan Duffield called the new cryptocurrency Xcoin, then the name was changed to Darkcoin to show its privacy character, and ultimately it changed to Dash “Digital cash” in 2015 to get away from the negative attention. Masternodes are full nodes that lock up 1000 Dash as collateral and enable privacy in the network. Masternodes receive a share from the block rewards and can participate in the decentralized governance process. Dash has no Foundation but is organized in a DAO where anyone can make proposals and receive funding – from 10% of block rewards that are set aside for sustainable project funding. Dash Core Group and other parties in the ecosystem collaborate on tech development and various adoption strategies to further advance payment & privacy. 

These resources help you to get to know DASH, to understand how DASH works and to start using DASH. DASH is a based on a fork of Bitcoin and was originally called Xcoin.

These resources help you to get to know DASH on a technical level and to start working with it. After going through the DASH resources you are able to determine when it makes sense to use DASH, how to set up and run a node, network or application.

45% of block rewards go to miners as mining reward for their Proof-of-Work. Another 45% of block rewards are masternode rewards for their Proof-of-Service. 10% of block rewards go to a decentralized governance budget to guarantee long term sustainability of the blockchain. On September 7th 2019, Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor gave a talk about ways he thinks Dash could become more stable and improve its tokenomics. Major changes to the current tokenomics were proposed and are currently discussed in DASH to make DASH a better store of value.

This talk on DASH tokenomics can be found here.

Dash’s DGBB (Decentralized Governance by Blockchain) model involves especially developers, proposal creators and masternode owners. Anyone can make a proposal through a specified process. The owners of masternodes “the network” make decisions by voting once yes, no or abstain for each proposal. If a proposal passes, it can then be implemented (or not) by Dash’s developers. Besides that Dash uses 10% of the block rewards for a decentralized sustainability fund that can be used for marketing, development or other initiatives. Thereby, Dash does not depend on donations.

More about DASH governance be found here.

The Dash ecosystem is organized in a DAO. There is no central Foundation but various parties that are actively involved in the governance process. Everyone can submit proposals for monthly budgets and master node owners vote on these proposals. Some parties are more established in the network such as Dash Core Group which receives monthly funding to mostly focus on core development. Other parties in the ecosystem mostly focus on driving adoption.

Dash underwent various changes while focusing on the implementation of payments and privacy. In 2020 Dash will continue to focus on core improvement, optimization of Dash block rewards and the adoption of Dash payments through improved usability. Updates will involve Dash Core, Dash Platform Rollout and DashPay.

A roadmap with past & future milestones can be seen here.

DASH has strong local communities and a network of merchants and individual supporters in various regions. You can add projects here and influencers here.